[Commlist] new book: Needy Media - How Tech Gets Personal

*Needy Media***

How Tech Gets Personal

*Stephen Monteiro***

*https://mngbookshop.co.uk/9780228025986/needy-media/ 
<https://mngbookshop.co.uk/9780228025986/needy-media/>*

*__*

*20% Discount code*: LSMNGUP26***

*Valid until 11:59 GMT, 31^st December 2026. Discount only applies to 
the MNG website.

"An exceptional and timely contribution to media studies. Monteiro 
redefines the way that we understand the relationship between media and 
their users." - David Parisi, New York University

"Monteiro has a welcoming voice, making /Needy Media/ accessible to a 
broad audience. I particularly enjoyed his unique historical perspective 
on the development of technology." - Mikael Wiberg, Umeå University

What makes our portable, networked personal media devices – smartphones, 
tablets, smartwatches – so irresistible? Reacting to our touch, voice, 
or gaze, seizing and keeping our attention with sounds, vibrations, and 
screen prompts, these objects construct an animated intimacy that builds 
trust and emotional dependence. /Needy Media/ explores how features such 
as face recognition, awareness sensors, and touchscreens have developed 
and intersected, tying them to key concepts of psychology, language, and 
the body. Surveying products and practices across a half century, 
Stephen Monteiro argues that the appeal is as much about how media 
devices behave as it is about the information they convey. Monteiro 
traces a symbiotic overreliance – a neediness – between users and 
devices, fostered by personalized aspects of digital materiality. The 
physical and emotional bonds that emerge, he argues, not only cast our 
devices as loyal companions adaptable to our needs and idiosyncrasies; 
they also facilitate the corporate harvesting of massive amounts of 
personal data in the name of making technology more friendly, intuitive, 
and individualized. Raising important questions about privacy and power, 
/Needy Media/ seeks answers in the complex and sensitive relationship 
between interface and body, a coupling that makes the networked object 
both an essential psychological presence and a lingering concern for our 
sense of self.

*Stephen Monteiro* is a faculty member in the Department of 
Communication Studies at Concordia University and the author or editor 
of several books.

*McGill-Queen's University Press**| 30 October 2025 | 240pp 
| 9780228025986 | HB | £28.99**

*Price subject to change.


---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ commlist.org)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------